


Admission

by cherryjam (blueskull)



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Confessions, Drabble, F/M, Fluff, Hyur Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Romance, i guess?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:21:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26024146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueskull/pseuds/cherryjam
Summary: Things should be different, but they don’tfeelvery different.
Relationships: Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch/Warrior of Light
Kudos: 18





	Admission

**Author's Note:**

> Canon divergent -- Emet-Selch survives.
> 
> Sort of companion fic to [Confession](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25719313) but reading it is unnecessary.

Things should be different, but they don’t _feel_ very different.

There is nothing different, except that she knows his name is Hades and hers was once Persephone, but not anymore. The strange dreams and writings in her books make a little more sense now, as do the odd expression she sometimes spies upon his face when he peruses them.

But there is nothing else. Nothing to this strange sensation and word that she wants to say, the word she knows but cannot bring herself to spit out. It is just another quiet evening spent, with some strange game of not quite cat-and-mouse that burns and ebbs just as quickly as it starts because for some reason they are both at some sort of stalemate they are too cowardly and tired to end --

There’s so much — _too much_ confusion that wells up within her, a desperate wanting to put a name to this strange thing between them —

Something to call it, before he goes, or before she goes, perhaps that’s more likely, she thinks much too much and his retreating back snaps at the anxiety building in her stomach like a baying hound even though all he’s doing is _leaving_ like he usually does —

“I — “

The singular, cut-off word is enough to get Hades to pause — to turn in curiosity as the void shuts, the darkness evaporating out of existence to reveal Arianna's pendants door instead. He doesn’t quite turn all the way around, playing off aloof...but she can just barely see from the corner of her vision that. He. Stopped. So.

Her fingers come up to bunch and grasp at the collar of her robes, as if she could somehow catch the words before she might say anymore. Her head shakes to the side, long black hair momentarily obscuring her vision.

“You?” the Ascian finally prods, perhaps impatiently, at the heavy silence blanketing them. Her heart leaps and jumps in her chest, fingers curling tighter to form tiny crescent moons in her palms, she can’t seem to breathe —

Her throat squeezes — then —

“ _I love you_.”

It’s almost a squeak, the way it squeezes out of her throat, and maybe a tiny part of her hopes he hadn’t heard her.

But she doesn’t need to look at him to know; all she needs is to hear the world-weary sigh that leaves him, hear the rustling of clothes as his shoulders slump ever further, the creaking of wood as he shifts to lean against the door as if suddenly everything is much too heavy for him.

When she takes the chance to look at him, a peering with green eyes, then, against her better judgement, properly lifting her head, she sees he is not looking at her. Instead, his gaze remains upon the ground, the pale fringes of his hair hanging in front of his eyes.

“-- I love you, too, my dear.”

The words are a whisper, yet she can hear the weight of years in them.


End file.
